Sunrise or sunset?

Sailors mostly prefer sunrise (I do) because it means you've made it through another night. But this is sunSET as we bring Cracker round south from racing at Felixstowe on the UK's East Coast to be on the Solent for her next race in Cowes.

There are no stars tonight - too much cloud - so dodging the constant lobster pots aint easy! But the phosphorescence streaming out behind us in our wake a nd the little bright green "lights" bobbing in the water in our wake is lovely and the whole evening is tranquil - the wind is light. It will be a longish night but then it'll be dawn again. Now, if it would just stop drizzing with rain for a while. . .

Creativity

In BAFTA this morning then back again for Film Committee tonight and today it is absolutely jumping with household names and familiar faces (no, obviously I can't photograph them - BAFTA is that rare thing for celebrities, a private space).

Everyone meeting here today seem to be planning new projects - certainly they are all getting animated / excited / loud! So much energy! So many good ideas. . .

But BAFTA has only been like this since the furniture and food were made less formal - more grazing and relaxed chatting these days has transformed it as a work space for the Creative Industries. As creativity becomes more central to the curriculum we need to learn from successes like this, and include it in the design of learning spaces.. . .

Learning, yearning

Learning Elsewhere:

Spending a few blissful days with baby Amelie is is hard not to be in awe of the drive babies have to learn (and walk!). Eyes are everywhere, curiousity dominates and play is so, so, so important.

At this stage - she is less that a year old - the learning gains are there almost daily. It really does make you wonder how well we could learn later if we kept the pace up.

In all my years working with new learning environments, the one thing that still amazes me is how far and fast learners can go, at any age, when the conditions are right. I can say for certain is that we really don't know how good our children might be (in every project they always outperform my most optimistic expectations), but for certain it is a lot better than we currently expect, or allow, them to be.

It ain't easy!

And just to remind you how hard it is to learn to walk - even when driven by going to look at a seagull, dog, or ice cream shop... here is baby Amelie learning about balance.

What goes up (2)

No I didn't take the picture - it was one of Cracker's crew, Cali and she is self evidently V brave! Looking down on Cracker you can see people, sails on the pontoon and the three sets of spreaders needed to hold up her rather tall carbon mast. Cali was up there servicing the host of sheaves and other bits n pieces that keep all the ropes running nice and freely around the racecourse. Oo er!